Marketing Takes So Much … Everything!

We know that you’re aware of the many benefits you can see from marketing (especially when it’s handled in a strategic manner!). Perhaps you know how important it is to establish your brand, connect with your target market, and make sure you can be found online.

And if you are aware of all that, you’ll likely understand this:

Marketing is an investment, not an expense.

Now, when you read that, there’s a fairly decent chance you associated it in the context of financial investments and expenses. Most people would interpret it this way at first glance.

Here’s the thing, though—we’re talking about more than just money here – your investment also includes time and energy.

Basically, you need to decide where to place your resources and, taking this a step further, ultimately make the call as to whether you’re going to try and go at it alone, hire an employee, or seek expert help.

Why Do You Need to Invest Anything for Marketing?

One way or another, marketing requires an investment – and the fact is, marketing is more complicated than ever before, especially in our modern world.

Think about it like this:

Just about everything in life has pros and cons.

When it comes to modern marketing, the biggest “pro” is that this can be so much more effective than the “spray and pray” tactics of yore. You now have the ability to target your ads to people who are actually looking up relevant keywords—thereby expressing obvious interest in the product or service you offer.

That beats the heck out of putting an ad on TV or in the newspaper and hoping your ideal customer will see it and decide to choose your brand.

The flipside of the coin is that marketing is more essential than it’s ever been.

Okay, so why’s that the case?

Because everyone looks for everything online.

In turn, that means you need your company’s website to perform well in search engine rankings. After all, how often do you venture past the first one or two pages when looking up products and services online?

Probably not too often.

That might not be so bad in and of itself, except for the search engines—and especially Google—constantly changing the rules on all of us.

When they make algorithm changes, it affects how your website performs. So it’s in your interest to stay current with what Google (and others) is deeming to be best current practices.

If that’s not enough (and most would think it is), you should probably spend time being mindful of what’s happening in the social media and email marketing worlds as well.

We’re incline to think the vast amounts of time and energy it takes to keep up with all of that makes it pretty clear as to why you need to make marketing a top investment in your business.

Let’s Get Realistic About Something Important

Here’s the simple fact of the matter:

You cannot possibly keep up with all the latest industry trends. How can we say this definitively?

Easy—we know the following facts:

A typical business owner/CEO doesn’t have time.

As the individual who is most responsible in your company, there’s a good chance you start some of your days as early as 3:00 AM and then don’t get to bed until midnight. On top of that, you’re overseeing a team of people—possibly even a great number of them—and perhaps spending a lot of time on the road, traveling to ensure the health and viability of the business. (Whew, just thinking about all that is exhausting!)

Modern marketing is dynamic.

Due to technology, everything seems to move at the speed of light. This includes best practices in marketing and SEO. What needed to be done six months ago to drive results, is different than what you may need now.

Put those together and there’s no way you can stay current in best practices. You have too much else to take care of and the world isn’t about to stop as you do.

Humor us for a moment:

Let’s say you do know it all and are able to stay current with the latest trends and marketing practices. Well, you still need the time to actually do it.

And time is finite.

You only have so many hours in the day—many of which you’re spending actually running your business and ensuring profitability.

This is a good time (it’s a pun!) to share an appropriate quote from Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?

“Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it. You can make more money, but you can’t make more time.”

Pretty great, huh?

You should obviously be pretty careful investing your money, but you need to be downright diligent in ensuring that you don’t waste your time. It is the most valuable resource you possess.

Beyond Time

But let’s put that time issue aside for a moment and change our focus:

Do you even have the right tools?

Do you even know how much expertise is needed for an effective marketing strategy? What you should do with social media and how to properly link content? How to improve your local SEO results … or even what local SEO results are in the first place? What about Reputation Management? How do you take care of that?

Sure, it’s one thing to have enough time to invest in keeping up with the constantly changing practices and demands of modern marketing; it’s quite another to possess the right skills and training to actually do them.

And, if you’re reading this blog, the odds are quite good you are an intelligent business leader, which means you know how to find and utilize resources.

The thing about that, though, is there are so many resources out there for both learning about and implementing marketing practices.

So do you know which are the right ones for what you’re trying to accomplish?

Here’s an even better question:

Were you able to take the time necessary to create an actual marketing strategy—so you have a clearly defined answer to what you’re trying to accomplish—or are you just “planning” on throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks?

Speaking of strategy, how are you using your content calendar?

Wait, do you even have one?

Either way, do you understand linking strategy? (Ideally, you do for both internal and external linking practices, but let’s just say either way here.)

Another resource you should consider applying towards your marketing is collaboration, which means you should be asking yourself what you’re doing on that front. And, as with linking, this happens on both internal and external bases.

On the internal front, do you have a team in place who can handle all the facets of an effective, comprehensive marketing strategy? If so, are they on the same page and working together, or does your organization have a “silos” mentality?

From an external perspective, are you building and maintaining connections? If not, it’s 2019! We live in the most connected time in human history. Yes, you need to connect (and engage) with your target market, but you need to reach beyond what you and your team can do. Marketing has become bigger than any one person.

Speaking of External Resources…

Trust can be tricky.

When you are looking to have someone do it for you, you want to tell them what you want, and trust you will get it.

You already have enough to worry about, so you don’t want to have to tell them every last detail and hold their hand as you walk them through every step.

Sure, there’s certainly partnership entailed with every successful marketing endeavor—but that’s not even close to being the same as needing to “babysit” someone.

It’s one thing not to hold someone’s hand as they do the work they’re supposed to do—and quite another to stay completely blind to what is happening.

After all, you should really know what kind of results you are receiving from your investment, right?

For that reason, we’re upfront with our clients and provide analytics and recaps. By doing so, you are able to see how your marketing is aligning with your business goals.

At our agency, it’s important that you don’t feel as though your marketing is just sitting there, like a holiday “Elf on the Shelf” (which adults know do not actually move around and create mischief!).

At the same time, even when you have trusted experts working for you, this is something important to keep in mind:

Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.

But you should be able to see progress, right?

Okay, so you want someone to just get it done for you—but you’re a smart businessperson and you will still want to know the metrics.

You need to be mindful of the placement of that “just” in that previous sentence:

You don’t want “just” someone to do it for you!

Sure, your brother’s friend’s little sister might dabble in web design, but you don’t want her putting up pictures or videos of puppies on your site. (Well, unless you own a pet store…)

Maybe you don’t have the time, experience, skill, and talent required for successful marketing that produces results, but you know who does?

Yep. We do.

Marketing agencies like ours can handle it all for you. What separates us from the herd is our focus on producing measurable results for you. Our team is excited when we see how our efforts help your company.

We want you to focus on running your business, not spending all of your time trying to grow it by using outdated or ineffective marketing practices!

Why We’re Right for You

When it comes to our processes, what we do and why we do it—the starting point is actually you. We take the time to listen to you and your goals and concerns. We find out about your company and brand and learn about you and your current situation, which is essential for creating our roadmap for your marketing success.

Speaking of that roadmap, an early stage is developing a comprehensive strategy.

Sure, you could choose a marketing agency that’s just going to put stuff out there and see what happens, the “set it and forget it” type of agency, but why would you do that? We have a team of experienced, dedicated professionals who want your business to succeed and will do what it takes to make that happen.

As a business owner or leader, surely you know how tragic it can be to let valuable resources go unused.

Fortunately, we’re here for you!

It really is in your best interest to consider contacting us so we can handle your marketing needs. As we’ve seen, it simply takes too much of your time and energy trying to do it all yourself—and there’s a good chance your investment won’t even pay off.

Instead, capitalize on the vast experience and remarkable talent of our team here at CP Solutions. Please feel free to reach out and give us a call to see exactly what we can do for you and your business. You can reach us at (833) 622-0907 and we’ll be happy to chat with you!